The ANC mayor of a Free State municipality personally profited from the construction of unenclosed toilets at the centre of a new political storm.
The mayor of Moqhaka Municipality near Viljoenskroon in the Free State is a director of the company that the municipality contracted to build the nearly 2Â 000 unenclosed toilets, according to sources in the community.
The Mail & Guardian has learnt that Mantebu Mokgosi, who became mayor in 2009, was a ward councillor at the time that the contract was awarded in 2006 to her company, Danteb Building Construction, which she owns with her husband, Daniel Mokgosi.
According to sources in Rammolutsi, the contract was valued at R1,6-million.
A Cipro search shows that Danteb Building Construction is currently in a deregistration process.
The source says that the construction in the township of Rammolutsi was done so badly, that the municipality had to call in a second company to rebuild the toilets. However, the toilets remain unenclosed.
Under investigation
When the M&G contacted Mokgosi, she said, “Everything is under investigation; I will respond after the report,” before hanging up the phone.
She was referring to a report compiled by the Human Rights Commission, on the ANC’s failure to provide adequate sanitation facilities in the municipalities under its control.
The report is expected to be released this week.
As local elections approach, a ping pong battle has broken out between the Democratic Alliance and the ANC, with each pointing fingers at the other for the bad state of sanitation around the country.
Rammolutsi is only one of several municipalities emerging as having had unenclosed toilets for over a decade.
This article was co-produced by amaBhungane, investigators of the M&G Centre for Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit initiative to enhance capacity for investigative journalism in the public interest. www.amabhungane.co.za.